 Hello, I'm Alan Beard, Department Chair of Biotechnology here for SciTech and I'd like to welcome you to BTC 181 Basic Laboratory Techniques. I'd like to spend just a moment to tell you a little bit about the course and to explain how the format of the course will work. The content of the course, Basic Lab Techniques, is pretty much as the name implies. You're going to be learning the basic skills that are necessary to work in a biotechnology laboratory. I'd like to kind of use an analogy of this toolbox here, the BTC 181 Biotechnology Toolbox. When the student comes in, we assume they're coming with an empty toolbox. Through the course of the semester, you're going to be accumulating tools. You're going to be learning centrifugation, making buffer solutions, doing electrophriesses, accumulating tools. You're going to be doing measurements, doing spectrophotometry, and a host of other techniques. But the notion is that you'll be accumulating these skills or these tools that you'll need when you go to work in the laboratory. All the tools are important. There are tools designed for each kind of job that you're doing. Just as in the analogy, if you were wanting to tighten a bolt, the hammer would not be the appropriate tool. So you need to accumulate all these tools. All the tools are important and you need to master them. Buffer solutions, pH, electrophriesses, all the things that are in the course. The other thing that's important is that your motivation is to master these skills, to learn the skills. Students say, I want an A and that's a good goal. But it's not the letter grade that should be a strong motivation. It's learning these skills because these are the skills that are going to make you successful in the workplace. When we design this course, when we decide what skills we're going to teach in the semester, we consult our advisory board, we consult companies in the city and what not and get feedback so that the skills that you're getting are ones that they want and the ones that are current to the workplace.